Troilet

There's a sob on the sea
And the old year is dying.
Borne on night wings to me
There's a sob on the sea,
And for what could not be
The great World-heart is sighing.
There's a sob on the sea,
And the old year is dying.



Claire de Lune

Soft with the breath of flowers
And laughter of dead showers,
The passionate pale-lit hours
 Encompass wood and lea;
And down the whispering river
And moon-bright dimples quiver
On waves that start and shiver
 For fear to join the sea.
But when Night's veil grows older,
Her subtle silence colder,
The poplar's blackness bolder
 Against the dawning sky,
New Day's renascent embers
Make June's dear dreams December's; 
And no one else remembers
 Except the moon and I.


Nachklang

Down the long white road we walked together
Down between the grey hills and the heather,
Where the tawny-crested
Plover cries.
You seemed all brown and soft, just like a linnet,
Your errant hair had shadowed sunbeams in it,
And there shone all April
In your eyes.
With your golden voice of tears and laughter
Softened into song 'Does aught come after
Life,' you asked 'When life is 
Laboured through?
What is God and all for which we're striving?'
'Sweetest sceptic, we were born for living;
Life is Love, and Love is - 
You, dear, you.'


Vilanelle

Violets from Plug Street Wood - 
Sweet, I send you oversea.
(It is strange they should be blue, 
Blue when his soaked blood was red;
For they grew around his head.
It is strange they should be blue.)
Violets from Plug Street Wood - 
Think what they have meant to me!
Life and Hope and Love and You.
(And you did not see them grow
Where his mangled body lay,
Hiding horror from the day.
Sweetest, it was better so.)
Violets from oversea,
To your dear, far, forgetting land:
These I send in memory,
Knowing You will understand.


Roundel (Vera speaks)

I walk alone, although the way is long,
And with gaunt briars and nettles overgrown;
Though little feet are frail, in purpose strong
     I walk alone.
Around me press unknowing and unknown
In lampless longing the insensate throng,
See but the shadow that my star
     has thrown.
Across the sundering sees my heart's wild song
Wakes in your joy for my joy, moan for moan.
What if, when Life on Love can wreak no wrong,
     I walk alone?


Hédauville

The sunshine on the long white road
That ribboned down the hill,
The velvet clematis that clung
Around your window-sill
Are waiting for you still.
Again the shadowed pool shall break
In dimples at your feet,
And when the thrush sings in your wood,
Unknowing you may meet
Another stranger, Sweet.
And if he is not quite so old
As the boy you used to know,
And less proud, too, and worthier,
You may not let him go - 
(And daisies are truer than passion-flowers)
It will be better so.


Ploegsteert

Love have I known, and dawn and gold of day-time,
And winds and songs and all the joys that are
Known once, and as a child that tires with play-time,
Leaped from them to the elemental dust of War.
I have seen blood and death, but all has ending,
And even Horror is but made to cease;
I am sickened with Love that lives only for lending,
And all the loathsome pettiness of peace.
Give me, God of Battles, a field of death,
A Hill of Fire, a strong man's agony . . . 


L'Envoi

Only a turn of head,
A good-bye lightly said,
And you set out to tread
 Your manlier road.
Both our Youth's paths once met;
And think now we forget
How great a brothers' debt
 To you is owed.
Sweep onward; and though Fame
Shall aureole your name,
Remember whence you came
 In Boyhood days.
And in life''s darkening years
Look back on hopes and fears
Mingled with memory's tears
 And blame and praise.


In the Rose-Garden

Dew on the pink-flushed petals;
Roseate wings unfurled;
What can, I thought, be fairer
In all the world?
Steps that were fain but faltered
(What could she else have done?)
Passed from the arbour's shadow
Into the sun.
Noon and a scented glory,
Golden and pink and red;
'What after all are roses
To me?' I said.


Vale

And so, farewell.  All our sweet songs are sung,
Our red rose-garland's withered;
The sun-bright day - 
Silver and blue and gold - 
Wearied to sleep.
The shimmering evening, like a grey, soft bird,
Barred with the blood of sunset,
Has flown to rest 
Under the scented wings
Of the dark-blue Night.